Guinness World Records–not a child’s play

Technology has, for sure, moved beyond a NPC role in the world of real-time gaming. But has it become MVP already? Let’s press the ‘start’ button here to find out more with Gameskraft.

Reducing battery, memory, and CPU requirements to offer smooth gameplay across devices; enabling app optimisation and using tools for smooth real-time experiences–that’s what makes a gaming platform a game-changer. Neha Gupta, Vice President - Engineering, Gameskraft shows us how the company has been using the technology joystick so far – and what new, challenging and exciting levels lie ahead.

One thing that stands out in terms of the challenges of creating multiplayer gaming is the real-time experience provided to users. Gaming platforms need to ensure that the games on their platforms are stable and run without any lags at a large scale, even with unstable internet connectivity, independent of platform and devices.

What is the role of technology in the business model of your company? How strategic is it?

Gaming is one of the biggest markets for technology. With the Internet’s rising penetration and affordability, it has experienced several rapid changes and is a vital part of a thriving online community of users.

Technology-led innovation is at the heart of everything we build at Gameskraft. The importance we give it has been instrumental to our growth and has helped us build our brand as one of the industry’s leading players in the online skill-based gaming space. We firmly believe that it is the perfect balance of proper use of technology and engineering excellence, and has helped our brand grow its user base and scale operations at an accelerated pace.

Our technological know-how gives us an edge in the industry. It is crucial in our mission to drive seamless experiences for users; which, in turn, has helped us build great user trust on the platform. It furthermore powers smooth business operations that serve millions of players—this also makes Gameskraft one of the most widely-used platforms in the online-skill-based gaming industry.

How do you address the challenges of, and tap the opportunities of, real-money gaming with technology?

The future of real-time multiplayer gaming has become brighter with some significant technological advances in recent times. One thing that stands out in terms of the challenges of creating multiplayer gaming is the real-time experience provided to users. Gaming platforms need to ensure that the games on their platforms are stable and run without any lags at a large scale, even with unstable internet connectivity, independent of platform and devices. It becomes extremely important for gaming platforms to offer a consistent and stable service to their users so that users don’t suffer due to technical issues.

How do you take care of that?

To address these issues, some of our key focus areas are application optimization for data, battery, and device configuration; Stable and high-performance services for lightning-fast and real-time app experience; and a safe and secure platform with real-time fair play rules processing systems.

Can you elaborate on some areas of tech investments, done so far? And on their impact?

Gameskraft strongly believes in the power of technology and the massive potential it holds in the industry today. Staying at the forefront of technological advancements is of great prominence to us. A large part of our focus lies in investing in technological improvements and innovation, to maintain our technological edge. A big part of this is about making the latest technology available to users in the gaming industry.

We extensively work on securing our platform’s interface, infrastructure, and services based on features that include instant withdrawals, a seamless experience, and the processing of real-time fair play rules. Various improvements, which need to be accomplished on a timely basis in the real-time gaming experience of a user, are done by optimization in the platform’s algorithms, the response time, and data transfer over wire.

What about traffic management?

Our platforms need to handle high loads of traffic efficiently without any downtimes, for which we have extensively worked on improving the observability of the systems to ensure real-time monitoring and alerting, automatic scaling up and scaling down, as well as having near-zero downtime for upgrading services and infrastructure. Constantly improvising these technological areas has resulted in thousands of players having a seamless user experience on our platforms at peak hours. We are an ISO 27001 and ISO 9001-certified company.

We have significantly invested in making our apps user-friendly and quick in terms of handling low bandwidth and flaky internet rendering per the device configuration. App optimization is critical in delivering stability while working with unstable and low-quality mobile data connections—this is realized by reducing battery, memory, and CPU requirements to offer smooth gameplay across devices. To provide true fair play and a safe and secure environment, Gameskraft has built real-time fair-play rules that directly reflect our processing systems.

To ensure fair play in skill-based card games in our roster, Gameskraft ensures that the algorithms used for actions like the toss, card shuffling, and similar moves are done in a truly randomized manner to eliminate any user bias. This is certified using well-established algorithms for generating random numbers for these actions.

With this, we have been focused on providing a consistent user experience and will continue to do so by being a leader in equipping users with advanced technological systems.

How do you leverage technology to etch a distinct space in an emerging but explosively competitive esports industry? What’s the importance of AI etc. in the Random Number Generation (RNG) part and how is that different from competitors?

Today’s platforms are built with technology at the core of all the solutions they offer: this solves many grassroot problems. Due to the rapid increase in India’s smartphone penetration, and low-cost but high-speed internet access, India’s gaming industry has been evolving at a rapid pace. This change indicates that even with rising user traffic, the country’s solutions can be upscaled through efficient performance and further innovations.

Gameskraft highly values keeping the company’s foundations intact, one of which is technology. Creating games on the platform by setting the right architecture in place has helped us implement, iterate, and scale faster. We continuously work on optimizing our services to handle deposits, withdrawals, and game engines and make them more resilient for a smoother user experience.

To ensure fair play in skill-based card games in our roster, Gameskraft ensures that the algorithms used for actions like the toss, card shuffling, and similar moves are done in a truly randomized manner to eliminate any user bias. This is certified using well-established algorithms for generating random numbers for these actions.

The RNG at Gameskraft is certified by iTech Labs, one of the leading accredited testing laboratories for certification and quality assurance testing of online gaming systems worldwide. The numbers generated by this algorithm have passed Marsaglia’s “diehard” tests for statistical randomness—a battery of statistical tests for measuring the quality of a random number generator.

It has been our constant endeavor to enhance our gaming experience, adapt to the ever-changing technology and ensure safe play for our users, and we make sure that we keep up with this.

Organising a record-breaking online rummy competition: What was that like? How easy or tough was it on the technology side?

In my childhood days, I enjoyed watching the Guinness World Records show on television. Being an actual part of the records was truly like a dream come true, as I had never imagined I would be associated with a Guinness World Record in my life. Creating this record at the online rummy competition with my team at Gameskraft holds a very special place in my heart.

This competition meant representing India on a world forum and showcasing what the country’s advanced technological systems are capable of, by handling huge scales efficiently in real time. Gameskraft was charged to achieve this feat and exhibit how players admire our games. Tournaments run at a massive concurrency and simultaneously have thousands of players on the platform—this requires complicated technological systems that can handle high TPS.

More than 18,000 game tables were running for this tournament, in addition to many other competitions on our system, along with practice and other game tables for which, our technological systems were prepared to give customers a seamless and smooth experience.

What is lined up next, in terms of technology usage, for the next 2-3 years?

We, at Gameskraft, constantly evaluate new technologies and work on continuously improving systems to maintain our advantage in the industry. We will continue to do so in the fields of augmented and virtual reality, blockchain, streaming, non-relational data stores, data engineering, and data science.

Neha Gupta

Vice President - Engineering, Gameskraft

By Pratima H

pratimah@cybermedia.co.in